Research

CeMig’s distinguishing approach is that it analyses migration and flight on a global scale. Its transregional perspective as well as the breadth of participating fields offers the opportunity to develop interdisciplinary projects on specific topics.

Interdisciplinary Collaborative Research Projects

Mobility Rights in the Global Context of Multiple Crises
DFG Research Training Group (2025-2030)
Speaker: Sabine Hess, Deputy Speaker: Olaf Deinert

Project description

In times of crisis such as these, the number of people forced to flee war or persecution is higher than ever. At the same time, migration itself is increasingly being viewed as a political crisis. The Research Training Group brings together twelve researchers from the Faculties of Humanities, Social Sciences and Law at the University of Göttingen to pursue the question of how, in this interplay of migration and crisis, mobility rights worldwide come under pressure, and how they might be stabilised. The interdisciplinary exchange makes it possible to analyse how migration movements are regulated and how migrants are struggling for rights. However, it also shows that the law itself is the subject of social and political debate and how politics is made through law. Further information (in German) can be found on the project website, in the press release of the University of Göttingen and the DFG.

Future of Migration
Science Space (2025-2029)
Speaker: Sabine Hess
Other parties involved: Kerstin Rabenstein, Alexander Kenneth Nagel, Andrea Bogner

Project description

The Science Space ‘FuturMig’ (2025-2029) deals with ideas and strategies for shaping the future of migration society in political, media and social debates, areas of practice and migration research. In ‘FuturMig’ CeMig cooperates with The Institute for Migration Research and Intercultural Studies (IMIS) at the University of Osnabrück (coordination), the Centre for Educational Integration (ZBI) at the University of Hildesheim, the Leibniz Institute for Educational Media, Georg Eckert Institute (GEI), Braunschweig and the Friedland Museum. ›FuturMig‹ focuses in particular on educational contexts – pre-school institutions, schools, universities, civil society initiatives, museums and memorials. In addition to the creation of various knowledge formats for university and (extra-)school educational work (such as a certificate program), participation formats and interventions are tested in a real-world laboratory on history and remembrance culture at the Museum Friedland, and debates are held with social organizations and groups. At the Göttingen site, Prof. Andrea Bogner, Prof. Sabine Hess, Prof. Alexander Nagel and Prof. Kerstin Rabenstein are involved in the ›FuturMig‹ science room. More information can be found via the following link: https://www.imis.uni-osnabrueck.de/forschung/3_migrationsgesellschaften/futurmig.html.

Imagine: Interdisciplinary Migration Network for Equitable Future
ENLIGHT Network (2024-2027)
Participating institutions:

Center for Global Migration Studies (CeMig), Göttingen
International Public Law Centre (IPL), Bern
Centre for the Social Study of Migration and Refugees (CESSMIR), Ghent
Human Migration and Mobility Lab (HuMM), Groningen
Institute for Cultural Research (ICR), Tartu

Project description

Imagine is network within the European University Alliance “ENLIGHT” and funded by the European Union. Together and in exchange with non-university social partners, the aim is to develop an agenda for future-oriented migration research and education in the midst of increasing social polarisation. The objective is to develop new analytical approaches and methods for research, teaching and knowledge transfer that will enable future knowledge production beyond the sole problematisation of migration, as is prevalent in the public and media debate. In this thematic network the CeMig is partnering with the International Public Law Centre (IPL) at the University of Bern, the Centre for the Social Study of Migration and Refugees (CESSMIR) at the University of Ghent, the Human Migration and Mobility Lab (HuMM) at the University of Groningen and the Institute for Cultural Research (ICR) at the University of Tartu. Further information can be found here.

Public Health and migration from a global and interdisciplinary perspective
Interdisciplinary Research Group (2022-2025)
Speaker: Sabine Hess & Anja Jetschke
Research assistant: Reza Bayat

Project description

The research group aims to address how the “protection of life” and the “right to health” are defined, encoded and implemented in relation to migrant populations and post-colonial minorities, as well as which ethical, social and political questions arise from this practice. With regard to the right-to-health approach in global norm-building, we focus on how international and regional organizations define the nexus between migration and health. The research group is particular interested in the question of whether the right-to-health norm helps them to establish a focal point for international action, enabling them to better influence national policies. It analyzes how global standard-setting occurs and how it influences the regional and domestic level. More Information can be found here.

Research Projects

CeMig organises its research along several thematic areas:

Legal and Policy Regimes as well as Migration Governance...

... are systematically explored and explained on a state, regional and international level. It is examined how different governments deal with migration and refugee flows.

Ongoing Projects

Completed Projects

The Political Economy of Migration...

... deals with the economic contexts. Researchers are interested in the determinants and effects of migration and refuge on the one hand, and study the relationship between labour and migration more generally on the other.

Completed Projects

"Knowledge and Innovation in, to and from Emerging Markets (K.I.T.F.E.M.)" 2018 - 2019 (Fabian J. Froese)

Environmental Issues and Migration...

... addresses the question of how environmental contexts and factors interrelate with migration decisions and patterns, and how communities deal with these circumstances.

Ongoing Projects:

"Climate Change, Belonging and Migration in Oceania" (Elfriede Hermann)

Economic, Political and Social Integration...

... addresses the necessary conditions for successful integration. Here, not only legal statuses but also rather classical sociological categories of ethnicity, gender, religious affiliation, cultural background and level of education explain the integration pathways and trajectories of migrants and refugees.

Ongoing Projects:

Evaluating and improving support for female refugee integration into the German labor market” (Sarah Langlotz, Adriana Cardozo Silva)
“Zugewandert mit beruflichem Abschluss: Wie Ausbildungssysteme der Herkunftsländer und Berufe die Erwerbschancen in Deutschland beeinflussen” 2023 - 2026 (Janina Söhn)
“ Transnationale Lokalgesellschaften: Eine interdisziplinäre Studie zur Transformation von Arbeit und Produktion in der Fleischindustrie nach der Pandemie (TransLok)” 2022 - 2025 (Peter Birke)
“Coming to America: Refugee Inflows and Political Impacts” 2021 - 2023 (Sarah Langlotz)
"Religiöse Vergemeinschaftung von Migrant*innen auf dem Land" 2021 - 2024 (Alexander-Kenneth Nagel)

Completed Projects

“What are the reasons for the below-average statutory retirement pensions of immigrants in Germany? Longitudinal analysis with the pension data of the ‘completed insured life’ (2017)” 2019 (Janina Söhn)
"Labor, Livelihood, and Immigration in a Brazilian Plantation: the Archives of Ibicaba Farm (1890-1970)" 2019 - 2022 (Bruno Witzel de Souza)
“Stadtlabor: Migration bewegt Göttingen“ 2019 – 2020 (Sabine Hess, Lars Klein, Alexander-Kenneth Nagel, Peter Birke)
"Biographische Verläufe von Migrierenden aus Syrien und Westafrika in Brasilien und in Deutschland – Prozesse der Inklusion und Partizipation im Kontext sogenannter irregulärer Migration" 2019 – 2022 (Eva Bahl, Gabriele Rosenthal, Arne Worm)
“Religiöse Zeiten, Mediengenres, technischer Vollzug. Eine ethnographische Untersuchung audiovisueller Medienpraktiken unter Schiiten in Hyderabad“ 2017 – 2020 (Patrick Eisenlohr)
“Refugees@work. Perspektiven der betrieblichen Integration von Flüchtlingen in Niedersachsen“ 2016 - 2021 (Peter Birke, Nicole Mayer-Ahuja)
POWERS: Peace, War and the World in European Security Challenges 2018 - 2021 (Lars Klein, Martin Tamcke)
“Migrantengemeinschaften, religiöse Identitäten und zivilgesellschaftliche Einbindung” 2018 – 2021 (Alexander-Kenneth Nagel)
Dynamische Figurationen von Flüchtlingen, Migranten und Altansässigen in Jordanien seit 1946: Zwischen erfolgreichem und konfliktreichem Zusammenleben? 2017 - 2021 (Gabriele Rosenthal)

Migrants' Perspectives and Voices...

... brings migrants’ and refugees’ practices, as well as their own subjective understandings and conceptualisations, to the fore. This research focus is interested in practices of mobility and translocal life projects, alongside migrants’ and refugees’ experiences with belonging, home-making and participation in nationally organised societies.

Ongoing Projects:

Completed Projects

Gender, Flucht, Aufnahmepolitiken: Prozesse vergeschlechtlichter In- und Exklusionen in Niedersachsen

"Zur Materialität von Flucht und Migration. Vom 'nackten Überleben' zu 'vielversprechenden Dingen'" 2018 – 2021 (Antonie Fuhse, Friedemann Yi-Neumann)

Migration and Public Health...

... examines how the "protection of life" and the "right to health" are defined and implemented for migrants and postcolonial minorities and what ethical, social and political questions arise from this practice, based on the unequal distribution of health care worldwide.

Laufende Projekte:

Interdisciplinary Researchgroup "Public Health and migration from a global and interdisciplinary perspective" 2022 - 2024 (Sabine Hess, Anja Jetschke)

Further Projects...

consider migration as a factor in the context of current research topics and issues.

Ongoing Projects:

Completed Projects

A detailed description of ongoing research at CeMig can be found in our Annual Reports. See right column.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Regional Foci

CeMig researchers focus on countries of origin, transit and destination across the globe, each with a different history of emigration, immigration and transnational entanglements. From a comparative perspective it becomes clear that societies deal quite differently with (forced) migration and associated challenges. Also, these studies from around the globe point to the various migration decisions to leave, move on, settle in or return, thereby covering the entire migration process. These varied insights into national, regional and local contexts of migration, into situated practices, allow for a global and decentralised perspective – as well as for greater understanding of transnational entanglements.

CeMig combines research results from:

Europe, especially the Balkans/Eastern Europe, Germany, Greece, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom

Asia, especially East Asia (China, Japan, Korea), South Asia (India), Southeast Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand)

Oceania, especially Central Pacific (Fiji, Kiribati)

Prof. Dr. Elfriede Hermann

Africa, especially North Africa (Morocco and the Spanish border area), West Africa (Ghana, Nigeria), Mauritius, Uganda

Middle East, in particular Israel, Jordan, Palestine, Turkey and the Syrian border area

America, especially Central America (Haiti), South America (Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela)

You can find a complete overview of our members listed according to faculties here.